Egg Tooth

Egg Tooth

I was yesterday with a woman selling flowers at the local Bandon Marketplace and she referenced her "Egg tooth", which is a special tooth that babies born inside of eggs have, placed usually on their snouts, and is the special tooth they use to initially break through the egg shell and to begin their life outside the shell.    Once free, this egg tooth usually withers within the first couple of months of life.

Immediately I spotted an untested (for me) metaphor, and thought immediately of my upbringing as a shy and withdrawn kid, and how I used hitchhiking as my egg tooth.   The unconscious awareness that I needed to grow, and getting away, putting myself in a position of having to interact with strangers.    I was lucky enough I guess to be born into a generation when hitchhiking was still a viable and accepted form of transportation for teenagers.   I did a lot with it, and it did a lot to me.    There have been many times in my life when I look back for its strength.    The ability to stand, and not know what the day will bring, but being unafraid to face whatever would come.   I remember one day - standing on the side of the road - and thinking of what I would say to an older me - and the one thing I could think of at the moment was "Never be afraid".

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Of course this whole egg tooth thing led me down a very interesting internet rabbit hole of mammalian evolution and the egg laying mammals (the monotremes.  Platypus, etc) being one of the oldest orders, followed by the marsupials (don't want to hurt no kangaroo) and then to the largest order of mammals, the ones with placental births (like us).

Evolution teaches that nothing changes unless it has to.    This leads to the question of why, which of course if science can be reduced down to one word, that word would be why.  

What was it in the environment at the time that required mammals to leave egg laying behind and move toward marsupial births, and what happened that forced them to have placental births.    A series of predations or unfavorable environmental conditions that did not favor eggs outside the mother's body.    But if this is the case, then shouldn't there also be parallel evolution in other egg laying species?

Also very interesting to me was that the monotreme migratory at the time in Australia, and also fossils being found at the southern tip of south america, with the only migratory path between them being Antarctica, but no fossils ever having been found in Antarctica at all.

There is no end of the Why's and What really happened.    There are many times I wish I could fast forward and fast rewind through time and find the answers.   And of course Science teaches us that the answers are all around us.  You just need the tools of science to be able to listen and see properly.

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I was wondering how I would have broken free of my upbringing if I was born in another time when hitchhiking was not an available mechanism in which to free myself into the world, and then I think of bike touring, which -  as it turns out - I used six years ago, the year Michelle wanted a separation.    Another breaking free, if not exactly on my own doing.  My base instincts kicked in, and lead me to get on my bicycle and ride down the pacific coast.    

When in doubt, get back on the road, seems to be a modus operandi that I have used in my life.     Road being freedom.   Road being a time to escape and reassess.   To rebuild.

A life is house, in constant need of repair.   Gain and loss.    Things come into our life.   Other things are taken away.   You have to keep rebuilding.   Nothing else to do.